Where Is the Beauty?

"Where is the Beauty" explores the "beauty of people" in ancient China. "Where Are the Beauties" depicts "their stories", stories of real or fictitious beautiful women. Naturally, there are also stories that are adapted from the Qing Dynasty's beautiful poems, such as Chen Yuanyuan in "A Night of Cold Rain Buried Famous Flowers", and some characters are simply from literature, such as Hong Fu in "Please Take Me to the Ends of the World", Du Liniang in "Unstoppable Love", etc. An Yiru even conceived the plot of Volume 4 of the novel herself. "Nothing else", but the prayer of the whole book is not only literary: "I divided a woman's body into several parts and drew them in detail, from hands to feet, from eyes to lips." What is more focused on is "women's emotional intelligence, their own qualifications, advantages or limitations, why they succeed, and where they fail." In a word, An Yiru wants to show the beauty of appearance and mind of ancient Chinese beauties, "using time as a red thread to find them in the vague memory." Although it was also involved, she did not pay too much attention to the old topic of "tragedy of beauty", nor did she "talk much about the grievances and infatuation between men and women." She wanted to use these beauties who "once existed in real life, but are now like myths" to "help us see ourselves clearly and discern some things." In this way, "Where Are the Beauties" highlights and develops the performance of the misfortunes and beautiful personalities of characters in past history that "Flowers Bloom on the Moshang" has already begun, but intentionally focuses more on the beauties. As for the differences, if "Flowers Blooming on the Moshang" is a little more sentimental about various "loves", "Where is the Beauty" is more of a rational observation, outlining how women, under situations that they sometimes cannot grasp, rely on their own will and wisdom to go with the flow or go against the flow, performing scenes of unexpected dramas that show their temperament.